Even for a colorful speaker like Steve Ballmer, it was an impassioned performance. Like a hotshot trial lawyer working the jury, the Microsoft CEO clenched his fists, gritted his teeth, alternately whispered sweetly and shouted explosively to the gallery. Delivering the closing keynote at the company's annual Financial Analysts Meeting, he turned to the subject of Passport.
Microsoft has been accused of an array of crimes over its plans to implement this online user ID service by hosting a massive centralized database of personal information. The charges: It would destroy online privacy; it would threaten security; it would position the company as an all-powerful middleman between Internet businesses and their customers.
"People say, 'Ooh, is there some big plot here?'" said Ballmer. Then, in Johnny Cochran rhyming rhythm: "The customer gets to choose how their data is used." Furthermore, he insisted, the businesses that partner with Microsoft and use its .Net services needn't worry, either. "They own their own data," said Ballmer. "They own their own customers."
To achieve broad adoption for its Web services platform, Microsoft must win the trust of both consumers and business partners. So Ballmer is out there making promises about privacy and security that will be difficult to break. "There's no other philosophy that makes any sense at all," declared Ballmer, resting his case.
But if consumers and Internet partners buy Ballmer's defense, it's the software giant's competitors who really need to worry. Unlike the browser wars, no company yet has a product to compete with Passport; and Windows XP, which is almost ready to ship, will support no rival service. Microsoft could win simply by being there first, providing the gateway - maybe the sole gateway - between users and Web services. Passport's potential to dominate the market raises the stakes in the current antitrust settlement talks.
Passport is a key part of Microsoft's .Net Web services strategy, which entails building a services infrastructure that's integrated with all its products. In the .Net future, your travel service will contact you on your desktop, handheld, pager, smartphone or even game console with a special offer, perhaps a hotel package for dates you've designated in your online calendar. It'll book a plane ticket for you, and on the day of travel it will message you details of the inevitable flight delay. With your pre-approval, these activities will happen automatically.
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| When Windows XP hits store shelves - officially Oct. 25 but perhaps weeks sooner - Passport will provide the bridge between the new operating system and Microsoft's Internet strategy. A glossary of some of the components of that strategy: | |
| Web Service | An XML-based application delivered over the Web that provides a preprogrammed service to the user, accessible from any device running on any software platform. While Web sites present information, Web services do things for users and may act as agents for them. Examples: online notifications of travel information or stock data; online calendar updates. |
| .Net | Microsoft's strategic plan to create a Windows-based infrastructure for Web services by baking deep XML support into all its products, including Windows, Office, its enterprise servers and developer tools. |
| HailStorm | A set of basic services, due in 2002, that Windows developers will use as "building blocks" to create complex Web services. HailStorm will enable business partners such as eBay to build cheap Web services. |
| Harmony | Code name for a set of premium services that Microsoft itself will create and market directly to users through MSN on a monthly subscription basis. |
| Passport | Authenticates a user's ID when any .Net Web service is accessed. User data is stored on Microsoft servers. Passport also includes an option to store credit card numbers and shipping addresses, which will later be collected separately as a HailStorm service called MyWallet. |
